THE report from 2027 delivered by “Children of Men” is mixed. On the plus side: Flat-screen TVs for every one! Also, alcohol is plentiful, and the dog track is still operating. On the minus side: The world has turned to smoldering ruins, and it’s been 18 years since any woman has given birth. Also, the leading consumer product – the Coca-Cola of Dystopia – is a suicide drug called “Quietus.” Motto: “You decide when.”

Playing Theo, the shell of an alcoholic whose son has died, Clive Owen is just the man to pick his way through the wreckage of what used to be London: He reportedly turned down the chance to be James Bond because, to him, it ain’t acting if light banter is involved. He is an outstanding performer, but only suffering is on Clive’s menu. Not that he plays Jesus in this movie. Nope. He’s merely Joseph.

After a surprise visit from his ex (Julianne Moore), who now leads a group fighting to protect immigrants from being caged and deported, he stumbles onto a woman (she jokes that she’s a virgin) who is pregnant with the only baby on the planet. They spend the movie dashing from safe house to safe house, one of which is the home of a chuckling old stoner played by Michael Caine, who appears to be wearing Emmylou Harris’ hair. The goal is to save the child. And humanity.

Everyone around them is a terrorist, and most are wearing government insignia. Between the marching Muslim extremists, snarling

immigrant-haters, gun-toting immigrant-protectors and a police force determined to crack skulls first and ask questions never, London has turned into a bombed-out ashtray.

Director Alfonso Cuarón has a vision so mesmerizingly terrible that it alone – at least, for those who enjoy a gorgeous nightmare – is reason enough to see the film. His color palette runs from soot gray to corpse gray as he hurls his camera over the festering landscape. Nothing is presented with the slightest degree of “Road Warrior” fun, either: This is humanity’s garbage time, in both senses.

The story, based on P.D. James’ novel, grabs you at first, but its grip slackens as the unanswered questions and murky plot developments add up. In addition to saving the girl, you want Theo to solve several mysteries: Is this really the only pregnancy? If so, what is different about this woman? Why did all women become sterile back in 2009? Who exactly can he trust?

Instead, Theo seems content to dodge bullets, get increasingly grimy and try to get mother and fetus to a mysterious organization called “The Human Project.”

As moving as it is to see one father figure, one innocent mother and one swaddled infant trying to emerge from hell, one baby isn’t going to save humanity, so their journey by itself seems pointless. The film wants to be political; if it aspired merely to entertain, it would have a bit more of the wit Theo shows when he casually pauses in mid-Armageddon to say, “What a day.”

But it completely misses the point about what is happening today to the same farcical degree that “V for Vendetta” did: Who seriously has an equal fear of London’s bobbies and radical Islam? In the past five years, the movie industry has virtually blacklisted any mention of Muslim terror – even documentarians are more worried about Wal-Mart’s health insurance – but “Children of Men” makes sure its buses, which are filled with political prisoners, are labeled “Homeland Security.” Ha ha.